Daily news and top headlines for broadband communications engineering and design professionals

Spurred on by recent standardization efforts, carrier Wi-Fi revenues in the United States are projected to reach nearly $8 billion by 2019, according to a recent report. The report by ABI Research also said that Cisco and Ruckus Wireless were the early carrier Wi-Fi equipment vendor leaders while other main market players include Alcatel-Lucent, Nokia, and Ericsson.

On Friday AT&T agreed to buy Mexico wireless provider Iusacell for $2.5 billion. The deal nets AT&T Iusacell’s licenses, network assets, retail stores as well as its approximately 8.6 million subscribers. Iusacell operates as both Iusacell and Unefón and maintains a network that covers about 70 percent of Mexico’s population.

"Several large mobile operators have made a gigantic blunder, by ignoring the opportunity to deploy Wi-Fi or utilize Hotspot 2.0 – so cable operators and other service providers are jumping on the opportunity." The growth in public Wi-Fi installations will far outstrip the deployment of small cells by telcos.

In the single largest deployment in the company’s history, Boingo Wireless has installed 25,000 hotspots across Marine, Army and Air Force bases. All told, Boingo's Wi-Fi service, which is called Boingo Broadband, now covers 21 United States military bases across the globe.

Dish Network is “cautiously optimistic” that the fixed-mobile broadband trials it’s currently running with Sprint and nTelos will turn into a “real business.” Dish Chairman Charlie Ergen said those trials and other opportunities have the satellite-TV provider well-positioned for growth.

Dish Network reported a modest uptick in third quarter revenue, less than half the profit, a modest decline in subscribership for its video service, and a minimal increase for broadband. With the video market is saturated, the company is widely seen as treading water.

Google has added a triple shot of Wi-Fi speed to a Starbucks store in Kansas City now that the store has been connected directly to the Google Fiber network. The Starbucks located at the corner of 41St and Main Street in Kansas City was the first out of the gates to tap into Google’s fiber network.

Carnival said will offer a long-range, broadband wireless Internet network on all of its 101 ships across nine cruise line brands. The cruise ship company says WiFi@Sea will use a combination of land-based antennas installed along cruise routes, Wi-Fi from a port connection, and advanced satellites to offer onboard Internet.

Can Old Faithful compete with Netflix? The prospect of streaming wireless service deep inside Yellowstone National Park is re-igniting the debate over whether there should be any place off limits to technology. Park officials are in preliminary discussions with CenturyLink about installing a $34 million fiber-optic line through neighboring Grand Teton National Park and into Yellowstone.

Fabless semiconductor company Peraso Technologies has closed a $20 million funding round. The company's chipsets are designed for products that will support the 60 GHz IEEE 802.11ad specification, which supports gigabit wireless connectivity for wireless backhaul, small cell base stations, file transfer, docking stations and other applications.

People who subscribe to Time Warner Cable (TWC) VoIP can now use their phone service anywhere in the world they have access to a Wi-Fi signal. TWC has launched an app, called Phone 2 Go, that lets its Home Phone customers take their service on-the-go at no additional cost.

Apple CEO Tim Cook said Apple's new mobile payment system had over 1 million activations in the first three days after it became available, and is now more widely used than any competing payment system. While Apple has partnered with major banks and large retail chains including Macy's Inc., Walgreen Co. and McDonald's Corp., critics have noted that it's not accepted by a number of other large chains.

Amazon has jumped into the TV stick arena to compete against similar devices from the likes of Google’s Chromecast and Roku. This morning Amazon announced its Fire TV Stick, which is available to existing and new Amazon Prime customers for $19 over the next two days, or $39 as a standalone. Amazon is currently taking preorders for the Fire Stick with shipping slated for Nov. 19.

Shenandoah Telecommunications Company (Shentel) is helping support the 2014 Create West Virginia Conference by offering free Wi-Fi in Glenville, W.Va. Shentel’s free Wi-Fi offer started on Oct. 15 and is slated to run through the rest of the month.

The National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) fired back at the FCC over implications that further delay of the 600 MHz incentive auction was due to an NAB lawsuit. NAB said the broadcast incentive auctions will be complex and that’s why Congress gave the FCC 10 years to complete the proceedings.

The FCC attributed this new delay to legal challenges from broadcasters. The proposal rests on a guarantee to broadcasters that the spectrum can be used without interfering with their signals. Not all broadcasters are satisfied that the FCC is doing that with the way it is evaluating coverage areas.

The company recorded 601,000 U-verse high speed Internet subscriber net adds, including 44,000 business customers, pushing its total of broadband customers past 12 million. AT&T also tallied 216,000 U-verse TV subscribers added, for a total of more than 6 million.

Aided by declining video subscriber losses, an increase in data subscribers and continued growth in the business services sector, Comcast posted solid results in its third quarter earnings report this morning. While Comcast lost 81,000 video subscribers in the recent third quarter, it was still the best third quarter for video in the past seven years.

Canadian cable operator Eastlink recently launched “Wireless TV” across its footprint, which gives its subscribers the ability to watch TV on up to six sets in a home without cable connections.The service uses Eastlink’s Maestro DVR, which, according to pictures on Eastlink’s website, is made by Arris.

Eighty potential bidders have submitted applications to participate. Smaller carriers like Guam-based Docomo and Bluegrass Wireless have thrown their hats in the ring, but the ones to watch are AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon and Dish, which needs a strong broadband play and thinks wireless will be the way to go.

Apple today launched its new Apple Pay service via the company's latest iteration of iOS 8. Apple Pay will allow iPhone 6 and 6 Plus users to pay for goods and services using their phone's Touch ID fingerprint scanner at select retailers that support the service.

DirecTV’s latest satellite has been delivered in preparation for launch. This satellite represents what appears to be the first commercial use of reverse band, which enables some of the same spectrum, and/or some adjacent spectrum, used for the uplink to also be used for the downlink.

Qualcomm is buying British chip maker CSR in a deal worth approximately $2.5 billion as it pushes aggressively into technology that connects devices over the Internet. CSR concentrates on the auto, consumer, and voice and music segments. The company's fiscal 2013 revenue totaled $960.7 million.

The company by the fourth quarter plans to begin shipping Li-Flame, a ceiling-mounted unit that can turn an LED light fixture into a multi-user access “atto-cellular” communication system. The Li-Flame moves Visible Light Communication (VLC) past point-to-point and into full wireless network territory, according to a press release.

AT&T announced this morning that it had completed the free speed upgrade to 1 Gigabit for all of its GigaPower subscribers in Austin. AT&T also said it would be launching a new gateway in Austin that would be “twice as fast as what is generally available today."